Jason Meadows' Bouquet Of Slain Consumer Trifles

Empathy is always the genie in Jason Meadows' work. Voice writer Jessica Baran gets it exactly right in this short, deft piece of art writing.

"It's the consistent mark of slowly plotted put-togetherness that sustains this show's air of
tragic affection. You sense not only the artist, but Frank himself hoisting four coffins into a towering, free-standing frame anchored in dirt, or thrusting PVC pikes into the 'heads' of old- man scare-masks, all the while thinking, 'This is a really good idea.'

You'd be almost inhuman not to identify with this creature, so sincerely taken in by his quixotic creative crusades. Dead Heads, a post-sacred-rite bouquet of slain consumer trifles—faux-leather fabric samples, chunks of flame-orange bungee cord, torn strips of camouflage—distills what this show seems to be about: the soft, mutual victimization that occurs in the course of our incurable love for our own ideas—when our flashes of superiority land us with the dubious distinction of having, say, pumpkin-carved a basketball and cast it in bronze."

Link: village voice > art > Sculptor Jason Meadows Evokes Frankenstein by Jessica Baran.

Check out the show. It's open in New York's Chelsea until mid-June.

Link: tanya bonakdar gallery :: exhibitions.

Comments

[Steven Augustine]

As ever, the words are so much grander than the evidence that the eye itself gathers...where would gallery "Art" be without the necessary evocations of talent that artspeak provides? Well done, writers! (And I post this as a former insider in The Racket; I cranked that stuff out with the best of them...)

[theresalduncan]

Steven, I respectfully disagree.

The best of contemporary art--and I would include Jason's work here--makes connections and allusions to the world and its stuff (and self reflexively to the unfolding history of art) to which words must strive to do justice.

If you "cranked the stuff out" you must remember this experience with art too?

[Steven Augustine]

Well, my experience with big ticket Art is that the post-post modern incarnation is more about the framing devices of the gallery and the catalogue than it should be.

My view is that the allusions an artifact radiates should be secondary to, or even side-effects of, the aesthetic impact of the artifact itself...an artwork's stability is a clue to its inherent value. In other words, a Benin bronze (semi-random example) is a Benin bronze whether you see it in a gallery, a dumpster, or somebody's laundry room. The same can't be said for the great majority of the post-'70s material commanding astonishing prices these days. Big-ticket Art has reached the abstraction-value of money itself: often, the intrinsic value simply isn't there...it's added with words and rituals which speak to the arcane obsessions and prejudices of the very rich.

Not to get long-winded here, but I'm old (and faded) friends with a genuine modern-day art star...(see the story "Career Move" on my site for clues-laugh)...and I know how it works. It's very much The Emperor's New Clothes; so much of the feted material would not look out of place in a dumpster. The imprimatur (and catalogue hagiography)of an exclusive gallery produces a halo effect that the Artist once relied on her/his talent for.

Allusions are fine but there should be free-standing magnificence as well. That's very rare these days.

Of course, TD, I remember coming up against the ineffable while cranking out my catalogue texts, but those moments were one-in-a-thousand at best.

Look...pay me no mind...I'm cranky before my time! (laugh)

[theresalduncan]

"The trivial is as deep as the profound because there is nothing in creation that does not go to the profound."

— Robert Duncan

"The symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum."

— Philip K. Dick

I see you have yet to read The Alchemy of Trash, by my dear pal Erik Davis.

Man, are you in for a treat: The Alchemy of Trash, by Erik Davis.

[Fortune's Pawn]

This exchange puts one in mind of an aside in the New Yorker's recent profile of Banksy:

But for every litter freak or culture purist driven to indignation by Banksy there’s a person who is entranced. While setting up the show in Los Angeles, Banksy ordered a pizza, ate it, and tossed the box in a Dumpster. Within weeks, the pizza box was sold on eBay, for a hundred and two dollars. The seller suggested that a few anchovies that had been left inside might yield traces of Banksy’s DNA.Dept. of Popular Culture: Banksy Was Here: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Personally, while I am nowhere near as jaded, cranky or weary as Mr. Augustine, I too, feel that there is more hype than meat, at least in the pieces shown in the linked-to gallery site.

[Steven Augustine]

Fortune's Pawn:

Now you've got my tummy rumbling!